Determinants of Information Communication Technology Accessibility for Community Development Activitiesamong Male and Female Agriculture Extension Workersin Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study identified the determinants of (information communication Technology) ICTs accessibility among male and female agriculture extension workers for community development activities in Edo State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected from randomly selected one hundred and twenty-five (125) agricultural extension workers with the use of validated questionnaire. Means and Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) statistics were used as analytical tools. Results showed that the mean deviations of gender of agriculture extension workers in terms of age (  = 1.4), household size (  = 0.2), years of training (  = 0.4), and job experience (  = 0.7) were nuance. PPMC results showed that male and female agriculture extension workers age (r = -0.32; r = -0.31) and female job experience (r = 0.29) were the significant correlates of accessibility of ICTs at 5% significance level while male and female agriculture extension workers age (male r=0.32; female r =0.31), years of training (male r= 0.63, female r=0.55), and male job experience (r=0.39) correlated with their accessibility to ICTs at 0.01 level of significance. The study recommends that agriculture extension institutions should make adequate provisions for staffs to take care of their household members which will in turn enable them pay much attention to official work and have sufficient time to access ICTs facilities. Also, young people should be employedto carry out extension works since they have higher accessibility to ICTs than older staffs.